Brother-in-Arms
by Rubik Ace
Summary: RED Medic is in serious trouble as he gets injured on the battlefield and cannot heal himself due to a damaged medipack. Help is on the way, though, but not in the most conventional way. Based on a dream I had.


**Based on a dream I had the other night. I do not own the characters or other TF2 stuff, those belong to Valve.**

* * *

I had been doing so well.

The team had been more than pleased with my performance; I had been able to keep them from going through the agony of respawn, and taken care of their injuries quickly and efficiently. I had kept myself safe and even defended a teammate and myself with my syringe gun or bonesaw when the situation had required it.

I had been doing so well.

It only took one bullet from the BLU Sniper's rifle to reduce me to a useless, whimpering waste of space. The _Wichser_ had gotten me into his crosshairs just as I was jumping from the bridge of 2fort to swim back to my own base. Not only did he leave me alive, but he shot my left knee to severely cripple me, and possibly stop me from reaching the safety of the RED base. The cruelty of the act was the last thing to bother me, though, as I swam across the pond, leaving a red trail of blood behind me. I could tell from my previous experience that the bullet had shattered the entire joint, and that I needed to immediately get into the sewer to heal myself in order to help my teammates defend our intelligence.

But of course it couldn't be that easy. The excruciating pain on my knee forced me to crawl in the ankle-high, murky water of the pipe. It took all my upper-body strength to drag myself forward, but I felt out of breath and confused after only a few meters. The water was getting into my mouth, causing me to cough and gag. If someone from the BLU team was to find me like this, it would mean a trip to respawn, or even becoming a hostage, a souvenir.

It took me a while to realize that the pack on my back felt lighter than usually. I struggled it off and brought it closer to examine it, but the enormous drops of water on my spectacles blurred my vision. Taking off my glasses made me almost half blind, but I was able to see a strange black dot on the tank, and a brief brush of my index finger identified it as a bullet hole.

_Nein_, I thought, panic rising inside me, making me feel extremely nauseated. The precious contents of the tank had leaked out, and what was left was water from the pond. Without the healing liquid inside the tank my medigun was just a useless toy, and I would be unable to repair myself if I didn't get the empty tank replaced with a full one immediately.

I considered calling out for my team, but I knew it would only attract unwanted attention from the BLUs as well. It was just my luck that no-one, neither a BLU nor a fellow RED, had found me. I felt myself break into a cold sweat as the panic started to get the better of me, and I decided to discard my medipack along with the medigun to aid my movement towards the curve of the pipe. I knew I would find a medkit in there, if only I could get to it. It would only provide me with the most necessary equipment I could patch myself up with, but that was a start, and I would probably make it out of the sewer after that. I wriggled my syringe gun out of its holster and started crawling again.

Exhaustion struck me just as I was reaching out a hand to grab the railing to drag myself out of the water. I knew this was a sign of my adrenaline levels rising too high, and the only way to gain back my strength was to calm down and rest. I leaned my forehead on the stairs, shivering from the cold. The taste of the dirty water was strong in my mouth, along with some iron. My frantic breathing had broken a capillary in my lungs, which was not dangerous, but it added a certain something to my current misfortune.

Sound of footsteps from the stairs leading to the ground level of the RED base made me jump and tighten my grip on the syringe gun. I heard no talking, which lead me to the assumption that the arriver might be our Pyro, who often patrolled in the sewer.

"Herr Pyro?" I called out softly, but received no mumbled response. In fact, I only received a complete silence as the footsteps came to a halt.

_Ach nein_.

The footsteps resumed, and I narrowed my eyes as I aimed the syringe gun.

As soon as I saw some blue at the end of the pipe, I greeted the arriver with a shower of syringes, making him cover his face with his hands. The baptism of fire did not last long, though, as I fired the last round of the clip, and my syringe gun gave a demanding "click", asking me to reload. The BLU had not backed away a single step, but was now running towards me.

I fumbled with the clip, dropping it into the murky water and struggling to get a hold of it again. I hit my injured knee to the concrete, let out a yelp and curled up into a ball in agony. The clip was torn from my hands and thrown down the sewer pipe.

"I am not hier to hurt you. I vant to help."

I raised my gaze to meet the frosty eyes of the BLU Medic. He wasn't pointing a syringe gun at me, nor had he raised his bonesaw. He looked sincere, but I knew this might be a trick. As I tried to struggle away from him he grabbed my wrists firmly and held me still while talking in a low tone.

"I vish not to hurt you. I know it is difficult to believe, but you need to trust me."

"You filzhy _Swinehund_", I growled and tried in vain to spit him in the face. "Get your dirty hands avay from me…"

He wasn't listening to me. Instead, he dragged me out of the water and made me sit down in the corner while he picked up the medkit and brought it to me. I wasn't still convinced about the purpose of this act, and I am afraid the BLU Medic could tell it by merely looking at my face.

"You should be less ungrateful", he grunted as he rummaged through the contents of the medkit. "I could have sliced your jugular, but instead I decided to help you."

"Vhy aren't you using ze medigun?"

"It vouldn't vork on you since you are from ze ozer team."

He grabbed my injured leg, making me wince in pain. He started to tie an elastic bandage around my knee, looking like he had to concentrate hard to get it right. I could see that the water drops on his spectacles blurred his vision.

"I vish I could give you my handkerchief to dry your glasses vizh", I said slowly and swallowed, "but I am afraid it is quite badly saturated."

A gentle smile. "Zat it quite alright, I have my own vizh me."

He gave me a shot of analgesic and picked me up, carrying me up the stairs to my own base, making sure he was not being seen. As he laid me down on the floor he reloaded my syringe gun for me and gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Without saying a word he turned his back to walk back into the sewer.

I could have killed him, right then and there, but I did not.

"Vhy did you help me?"

He did not turn around, but reloaded his own syringe gun and started to descend the stairs.

"Because your doves need you as much as mein need me."


End file.
